World News

BEIRUT -- Russia said the Syrian army was suspending combat operations in Aleppo late Thursday to allow for the evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held neighborhoods, but residents and fighters reported no let-up in the bombing and shelling campaign on the opposition's ever-shrinking enclave.

MEUREUDU, Indonesia -- Thousands of people in the Indonesian province of Aceh took refuge for the night in mosques and temporary shelters after a strong earthquake Wednesday killed nearly 100 people and destroyed dozens of buildings.

BEIRUT -- Syria's government ignored a rebel cease-fire proposal for Aleppo on Wednesday as its forces captured new neighborhoods around the city center and squeezed some 200,000 tired and frightened civilians into a shattered and rapidly shrinking opposition enclave.

SANTIAGO, Cuba -- A wooden box containing Fidel Castro's ashes was placed by his brother and successor on Sunday into the side of a granite boulder that has become Cuba's only official monument to the charismatic bearded rebel who seized control of a U.S.-allied Caribbean island and transformed it into a western outpost of Soviet-style communism that he ruled with absolute power for nearly half a century.

ROME -- Italian Premier Matteo Renzi announced he will resign today after suffering a stinging loss in a reforms referendum, triggering immediate calls from a populist party and other opposition forces for elections to be held soon.

EL GUAYABO, Cuba -- The single dirt street in El Guayabo runs past a few dozen cinderblock homes, the medical clinic and the primary school to a grove of 76 trees planted to honor Fidel Castro on his 76th birthday.

CHAPECO, Brazil -- On a rainy Saturday that only accentuated the grief, 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium under umbrellas and plastic ponchos to say goodbye to members of the Chapecoense soccer club who died in a plane crash.

MEDELLIN, Colombia -- Authorities prepared Thursday to transport home the bodies of dozens of victims of this week's air tragedy in Colombia as grief turned to anger amid indications the airliner ran out of fuel before slamming into the Andes. Bolivian aviation officials announced they were indefinitely suspending the charter company that operated the flight.

PARIS -- France's President Francois Hollande announced in a surprise televised address Thursday that he would not seek a second term in next year's presidential election, acknowledging that his personal unpopularity might cost his Socialist party the Elysee.

VIENNA -- Breaking with years of inaction, OPEC agreed Wednesday to cut its oil output for the first time since 2008. The move effectively scraps its strategy of squeezing U.S. competition through high supply that had backfired by lowering prices and draining the cartel's own economies.

BEIRUT -- A series of artillery rounds lobbed Wednesday on Syria's eastern Aleppo district killed 26 civilians, including seven children, as they fled a government ground offensive in the besieged enclave.

BEIRUT -- Syrian government forces captured more than a third of opposition-held eastern Aleppo on Monday, touching off a wave of panic and flight from the besieged enclave as rebel defenses in the country's largest city rapidly collapsed.

There are no statues of Fidel Castro in Cuba. No school, street, government building or city bears his name. And while his likeness stares back from billboards and official portraits, it is absent from pesos and postage stamps.